1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a plasma display panel (PDP) having a mesh-patterned partition for dividing a screen into cells arranged in each row and each column of a matrix display.
In recent years, a mesh-patterned partition that offers advantages in separation of discharges and increase in arrangement area of fluorescent materials has drawn attention instead of a stripe-patterned partition that is excellent in mass productivity. In the case of adoption of the mesh-patterned partition, it is desirable to contrive so as to shorten a time required for an exhaust process in manufacture of a plasma display panel.
2. Description of the Related Art
In manufacturing a plasma display panel, a pair of substrates is attached to each other, then, an interior space is cleaned to perform an exhaust process for filling a discharge gas. A gas remained in a gap between the substrates is evacuated through a vent formed on the back substrate to produce a vacuum, and after that, a discharge gas is filled.
Concerning acceleration of an exhaust process in a mesh-patterned partition, U.S. Pat. No. 6,608,441 discloses that a partition is partly lowered to provide a mesh-like air path passing through all cells in a screen. The mesh-like air path has better ventilation than a unidirectional air path has, such as a vertical air path or a horizontal air path.
A heat shrink property of a partition material is used in formation of a partition, and thereby, a partition that is partially low can be formed by the same man-hour as the case of forming a partition having a constant height. More specifically, when a partition is formed by baking a low melting point glass paste, a pattern width of a portion to be lowered in a mesh pattern is thickened. Since shrinkage in the width direction is inhibited in the thick portion, the shrinkage amount in the height direction of the thick portion is greater than that of a thin portion by the corresponding amount. Accordingly, a portion whose pattern width is thickened is lower than the other portions in the partition.
According to a plasma display panel described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,608,441 mentioned above, since portions corresponding to inter-row portions in a matrix display of a partition are equally low, there is a problem that separation of discharges among cells constituting columns of the matrix display tends to be insufficient. Especially, in a high-definition plasma display panel in which display electrodes are arranged between rows, a discharge tends to extend in the column direction (generally, in the vertical direction) through the display electrodes each of which straddles adjacent two rows. Accordingly, it is necessary to ensure discharge separation between rows.